One Turn
by rebeccavoy
Summary: What if Sam and Jack grew up next door to each other?  AU series
1. Notes

I always shied away from writing a longer fic series as I consider myself too slow a fic writer to do it justice. However, over a year ago I got an idea for a series of Stargate fics and I've been thinking of it ever since. I'm not sure where the idea came from, but I don't think it's going to go away until I actually sit down and write it. I've always been fascinated by episodes and fics dealing with AUs – I like that balance between finding something creative and new, and being faithful to the characters we already know. I was thinking about this and started considering what would happen if we turned the dial to the quantum mirror just one turn. What would one turn of the dial do to the universe we know? I decided to change just one thing, and see how it spiralled from there.

What if, I thought, Sam and Jack knew each other before the SGC. What if, in fact, they lived next door as kids? How would this change how they dealt with each other? How would this effect how they lived their lives?

I have also, to make the stories easier to develop, decided to change Jack's age. While still several years older than Sam, I have made him considerably younger than canon, shifting the age gap between them from twelve years to three. There is a fair chance (okay every chance) that canon will get progressively mangled as the series progresses so be warned.

Instalments will be shortish (~1000) and should be loosely related. I make no promises as to the expediency of my instalments (hey, at least I'm honest).


	2. 1 Neighbours

Jack didn't budge when he heard the knock at his front door. Why should he? No one ever came to visit him. No one ever came to ask his opinion on things, or to see his new toys. And this was a great shame, for Jack considered himself to be an excellent visitor. So when the knock came he didn't move, merely remained where he was, sprawled out on the rug, flying his jet in circles over his dog's head, coming in for the occasion landing along Rusty's nose.

When excited voices wafted from the door, however, penetrating the calm warmth of the den, Jack thought he had better go investigate. After all, his daddy had always told him to look after his mother while he was at work.

He didn't recognise the man talking to his mother, but he seemed very happy and was wearing a blue uniform like Bobby White's daddy. Maybe he was going to go fly a real plane like Mr. White - that would certainly make anyone excited, and would definitely explain why he was here to share his news. Except... well, Jack's mother seemed to be _very _excited for the man, and he knew that his mother often got tired of listening to Jack talk about flying. So this couldn't be the important news, after all.

The man stayed only a short while, passing back short, hurried, and hugely grinning words that Jack continued in failing to understand. When he left, Jack noticed what, or rather who, he had overlooked in the presence of the excited stranger. Tucked up against his father's leg had been a boy. He was about Jack's age, and considering that his father had just bounded back across the road, appeared to be staying awhile.

Jack eyed the boy warily. He had blonde hair parted neatly on his head, far tidier than Jack's own sandy hair, spiking up in all directions. Jack didn't really trust people with such neat hair; his hair never went like that, so who knows what they had done to manage it. This boy did have a baseball crammed into his jacket pocket, however, so maybe there was some room for hope.

"I'm Mark," the boy said as Jack's mother took off his coat, handing him his ball. "We live in the blue house."

Jack knew this; he had climbed up on the top of his daddy's car to watch the moving men carry in all the furniture. He had seen a uniformed man and a pretty blonde lady moving in and around the house, but he hadn't seen a little boy. This was great, there were no other boys their age on the street - maybe he be would be his friend.

"Where was your daddy going?" Jack asked as he led him outside to play, wondering if this boy's dad would maybe take him flying too.

Mark threw his ball and grinned, "He's gone with my mum to buy me a present."

"Is it your birthday?" he asked hopefully. Jack liked birthdays - there was usually cake.

"No, they've gone to get me something special - a sister." Jack didn't know that toy. When he said so, Mark just puffed up with importance and explained. "A sister is something only special big boys can get. It's something you can play with and have to take really good care of. And you have to wait a really long time for them - you have to order them from a really far way away place."

"Yes..." Jack said, looking on Mark's excited face. "But what is it?"

"I told you, it's -" Mark stopped. "Well if you don't know then you mustn't be special enough to have one, so I won't tell you."

Jack just shrugged. It didn't matter, he had plenty of toys.

The boys played happily all afternoon, discovering a shared love of baseball, model airplanes and tree climbing - all the things life-long friendships were built on - and it wasn't long before the pair, entirely worn out, crashed inside the new living room fort.

It was a far more subdued Mark who graced their doorstep the next day. While his father, watching him from the porch, was grinning ecstatically, the proud excitement had left Mark's face. Following his mother next door, Jack asked Mark what was wrong. The boy mumbled something quietly, but the only part Jack managed to make out was something about 'crying'.

Jack liked Mark's house; it was bigger than his and smelled like cookies. Sitting on the couch was the blonde lady he'd seen moving in. Mark ran up and tucked himself in next to her, sitting very close. Jack's own mother greeted her and moved in to inspect the basket on the coffee table - which Jack thought rather odd, no matter how much his mother liked her washing to be folded away carefully.

When the lady noticed him trailing behind she smiled at him and invited him forward. She reached into the basket and pulled back a blanket, showing Jack not folded clothes, but a tiny pink thing. So this was a sister!

Jack studied her closer, the pink thing was a tiny little person! She had hands even smaller than his and the same light hair as Mark topping her head. Her feet were covered in the tiniest pair of socks he had ever seen. His mother chuckled lightly at the sight of her son, the boy who was never still, standing transfixed at the side of the bassinet, fingers tight on its edge.

Wakened by the weight of all these eyes upon her, the baby opened her eyes and started to cry. Jack saw Mark flinch slightly but his attention had wavered only momentarily. Turning in her search for comfort, the baby's eyes had landed on Jack and her crying ceased. Her eyes were as blue as the sky and so big in her tiny face.

"Jack," Mark's mother said softly. "This is Samantha."

Somehow knowing he had to be very gentle, Jack reached into the basket and touched her little hand, surprised when she wrapped her fingers around his. Mark didn't seem all too happy with his new sister, but Jack was starting to think she was pretty special after all.


	3. 2 Doing Their Duty

Jack dove over the small outcropping of rock, crouching low to take advantage of the limited cover it afforded - though it did nothing to cover the sound of his enemy closing in on him. It had been a long run to escape their clutches and the drawing of breath made his toes ache.

Somehow between the ambush and here he had lost sight of his captain and that made him more than a little nervous. Straining his ears to hear something, anything, beyond the noises if his would-be captor, he sought to find the noises of his companion. His light-footed captain was hard to identify, crunching footfalls entering the range of his hearing only seconds before they too jumped for cover, clutching their weapon tightly to their chest, white fingers wrapped around the handle.

"They're right on our tail."

"I know," Jack breathed, trying to get his racing heart back under control. "We're going to have to make a run for it."

"The ship?"

"Yeah. Do you think you can get it flying again?" Jack knew his limits, and was all too aware that if their ship was to have any hopes of revival it would not be at his hands.

"Yes..."

"Are you sure?" Jack asked, receiving a fixed blue stare for his words.

"Are you doubting me?"

Jack grinned. "Never."

The run (the 'all-out, death-defying sprint of life,' as Jack would later describe it) back to their vessel was more than a little frantic, with several near misses when their enemy drew close. Throwing themselves at the foot of the ship, they suffered the agonising wait of the hatch opening, squandering precious seconds they didn't have to waste. Diving through the half opened hatch they ran to where they were of the most use, their actions those of a well-honed machine, long practiced now strongly ingrained.

Standing at the helm, Jack inputted the commands to take them home. As soon as the ship was functioning once more they would be off - he was, after all, the best pilot in the fleet. Hand hovering over the hyperspace initiator, he waited for the call from the aft hold but, when it came, it was filled with far more outrage than satisfaction at a job well done.

Turning with dread, Jack saw the object of his captain's consternation. Clinging to the outside of their hull was their enemy, sucker like hands suctioning to the tetra-hydra-shiny-wall their ship was made of. Glaring through the viewport the alien's eyes glowed and flashed, its teeth threatening to tear them to shreds. Seeing the alien open its mouth wide, Jack levelled his ray gun directly between its eyes, but not before it spoke its horrible message of doom -

"Mum says it's time to come inside and have your bath."

That's it, they were done for. Hitting the deck of their ship, Pilot 1st Class Jack O'Neill and his commander, Captain Mark Carter, writhed in the pain delivered by the acidic breath of this intergalactic monster.

"Mark!" she yelled. "She said now! Stop running away."

Taking one step into the 'ship' Captain Mark awoke from his stupor, jumping up and tossing his ray gun aside. "Sam! What have we told you? No girls allowed in the tree house!"

Fixing him with the indignant stare possessed only by four year olds, Samantha Carter (a girl, and therefore ineligible for enlistment in the boys Galactic Exploration Fleet) merely sniffed. "Like I'd want to play in your smelly old tree house anyway."

Watching her walk off stiffly, Jack rolled his eyes and retrieved his captain's fallen weapon. "Girls," he scoffed.

Mark looked at him, adopting an arched brow. "Our mortal enemies..."

"We must do our duty to rid the galaxy of their evilness..."


End file.
